MIT Provost Anantha Chandrakasan announced on Oct. 6, 2026, that Chris Bourg, director of the MIT Libraries since 2015, had been named vice provost and Barbara K. Ostrom (1978) Director of the Libraries. According to the MIT news report, a gift from Barbara K. Ostrom endows the director position to help fund it in perpetuity. Chandrakasan said the vice provost title signals the libraries' importance in the digital age.

During Bourg's tenure, the report says, the libraries emphasized digital access, open and equitable scholarly publishing, and support for data-intensive and computational research. Bourg co-chaired an MIT working group on scholarly content and generative AI and served on a committee on AI use in teaching, learning, and research training, which issued its final report in August, the report states. The libraries also launched the Center for Research on Equitable and Open Scholarship in 2018 and completed a renovation of Hayden Library and the Building 14 Courtyard.